Story of my father Jānis Martuzāns in 1944

His reasoning was quite private and pragmatic though a rather difficult. I know that he thought a lot to make the decision and discussed the problem with my mother. Frankly speaking, he had no reasons to wait for the Soviet Army, at the contrary, he was afraid to have serious problems with communist regime for two reasons:

1. He was a member of the Party of Social democrats in the 1930s. He suspected and was quite right that communists considered the Social democrats much greater enemies than the real capitalists.

2. And now the greatest our family secret that was never discussed in details. My father used to be a secret agent of the Political Police of Latvia. He was paid (80 Ls per month) for compiling monthly reports on the state of mind of the publics in the pagasts. Sure it was the political state of mind, not the opinion on fashion or girls. This study was not quite passive process, he had to initiate discussions on political questions with his neighbors and so to gather necessary information. The Political Police was also interested in what was happening in the Party of Social democrats, I think.

No doubt, if communists knew that he had been a secret agent, he would have been shot without much delay in 1940. But they did not. Father’s chief - the only person from the Political Police he had contacts with and to whom he delivered his reports - informed him, just before the Red Army entered Latvia, that all documents concerning his secret activities are annihilated and he should feel himself safe. Even more, my father heard rumors that the corpse of the chief was seen somewhere near Balvi soon after the Soviets invaded Latvia. You can never know in these matters, however, therefore my father during the Soviet time in 1940/41 was very quiet and half in hide.

During Nazi time he worked in our family farm that my parents have bought a couple of years before the war began. In some periods he also had some duties in the local government of the Vedenieši village. As far as I understand, his position was very low - some responsibility on 10 farms or so. The most important problem the Germans had in the agriculture was the collecting of duties in kind from the farms (mainly food items). So I think he was engaged in distributing the duties among the farms, in control how they are fulfilled, some calculation was also needed, say, if somebody delivered chickens instead of beef meat, the duties were to be recalculated. For fulfilled duties some money was paid and some goods were distributed or - more precisely - the rights to buy some goods were granted what also needed management. However my father’s activities could not be regarded by communists as serious collaboration with Nazis, at least my father could hope.

At the beginning of 1944 it was clear who should win the war, and I think that the most important of the considerations was that there was no reason for joining the losers. And so my father decided to go in hide. He was not seen in the village and he frequently spent nights in forest. However the contacts with the home and the family were rather close, and in the reality he worked in the fields of the farm, because this work seemed to be done no matter was there a war going on or was not.

It happened in one of the May days when my father being in hide worked in a field - he sowed barley. Two policemen suddenly appeared near the field, and my father run away frightened. Later my mother sharply criticized his behavior, because he run home, not to the nearest forest. The policemen followed him in the house, and now they had captured him. Fortunately enough, one of the policemen was a good acquaintance of my father - he was from Kuprava where my father lived before the farm was bought, the other one occurred to be a schoolmate of my mother - his name was Jānis Tašmans. Recently my mother found his name on the lists of guerillas killed in the fights with MGB after the WW2.

You see, it was not that easy for both policemen to fulfil their duty, so some discussion began. As the result of the discussions, both parties agreed that the father would go to the military office next morning, because some important things should have been done in the farm including the sowing of barley.

Actually everyone understood that this would not happen. And really, next morning father hid himself much more carefully. He was not alone, quite many men of the village hid themselves in forest, some of them built rather comfortable dugouts near a river, some built huts in remote places and so on. They had no arms and did not fight against anybody, they just waited when the war would be finished. The hiding did not last long time. In July 1944 the Soviet Army pushed the German Army out of Latgale.

As far as I understand, one of the first jobs of Soviets in this territory was to find the secret agents left by Germans. Please, do not think that the Nazis were so stupid that had not such agents, but I am also sure that the Soviet security forces found many times more of them than they were really left.

And so, my father had to visit a Soviet Army counterintelligence (Smersh) officer, who worked in the village. The officer was a professional and have had a lot of similar investigations in his life, however he underestimated the experience of my father, who, as a former secret agent, also had some practice in hiding thoughts during free chats like that organized by the officer.

The first question was what my father did during the German occupation time. My father did not try to tell stories but explained what position he had and what his job was. No doubt, the officer knew quite well what my father did and asked just to understand if he was going to lie.

The next question was more interesting: - Why did you not join the German Army?

What could be the answer? My father answered that he could not fight against the Soviet Army where his own brother served. He could not fight against the brother! Never!

Here some explanations are needed. The brother of my father, Staņislavs Martuzāns served in the Latvian Army in 1940 when Latvia was incorporated in the USSR, and the former Latvian Army became part of the Red Army. In this way my uncle also became a redarmist. He served in Litene and now it is known that there some tens of former Latvian militaries were shot by NKVD in June 1941, but at that time they never informed anybody, and so officially Staņislavs was in the Red Army and moved with it in the eastern direction. Even more, somebody told my grandparents that Staņislavs was seen on an open platform of a train going in the eastern direction. The train from Litene should go through Kuprava railway station, and there somebody saw him waving farewells as the train passed the station.

My father have never heard about the massacre in Litene, but he had another information. Sometime in November 1941 he was asked to visit a police officer, of course, one of the Nazi police. In the police he was informed that a corpse of an unknown redarmist was found in August 1941 in a forest near Litene and at this corpse a copybook with some inscriptions of Staņislavs Martuzāns was discovered. The policeman wanted to know what information could my father add about his brother and found person. Unfortunately my father had no information on his brother’s fate and the problem remained unsolved. Later some information was received that the dead person in the forest was somebody with a similar name. May be.

My grandmother never believed that her son died and waited for some news about him till her death. Official inquiries to Soviet military organizations gave the answer that Staņislavs Martuzāns was not found on the lists of fallen and disappeared persons.

But it was later, now let us return to the friendly chat with the Smersh officer. This officer knew nothing about my uncle and his fate and should believe to anything he was told. Actually he was trained to believe nothing that was told, but in this case he had no choice. The next problem he wanted to solve was to find the proprietary class my father belonged to, so he asked what was the property my father had. How much land he had, how many horses, cows etc.

Evidently the officer had fairly simple guidelines - the more land a farmer had, the greater the possibility he would be a class enemy and a supporter of Nazis. My father had a small farm of 12 hectares and he could tell all the truth without any fear. He informed Soviet counterintelligence about all his house animals and did not forget also 10 beehives.

Oh, you have bees! - was the reaction of the officer. - Then you could bring me some honey! My father could. Really, having 10 beehives, he had no problems with honey and brought a couple of liters to the officer. This was the final proof of his acceptance of the Soviet regime.

Some time later all men of the appropriate age, including my father, were gathered for military service - now in the Soviet Army. As my father told me, a lot of them had no other documents except the draft notices of Nazis. But it fit quite well. However not all of the conscripted persons joined the Soviet Army, many of them decided that they can wait the end of the war in the forest and remained there. But this is another story.